She had expected to be staying stateside with her husband and 2-year-old son while serving as a general's guard on base in Virginia. Then the call came last month asking whether her bags were packed.

"I'm conflicted," Augustine said. "When you have a family, everything is conflicted." Yet, "any woman who feels she can go out there with a big, heavy gun, the more power to her."

And off she went as part of the U.S. deployment against Iraq - the new face of the female American soldier, this one carrying an M-16.

Launching Tomahawk missiles, piloting F-18 fighter jets, returning fire if ambushed - all are possible in a day's work for American servicewomen nudging their way toward what will be the front lines if the United States invades Iraq.

The war could expose many more women to combat than previous conflicts, despite restrictions on what they can do.

Women now can command combat military police companies, fly jets and Apache helicopters, work as tactical intelligence analysts, and more. If called, female chemical specialists will go to contaminated areas and female helicopter pilots will land infantry in combat areas, or evacuate them, during assaults.

After the Gulf War, Congress eased rules excluding women from combat, opening thousands of new opportunities. Still, they are not allowed into positions where they are most likely to see ground combat - infantry, armor, artillery and Special Forces.

As women flowed into the civilian work force and overcame other limits through the generations, the arguments for holding them back in the armed forces have largely endured: They are physically weaker; they might ruin the cohesion of an all-male unit; Americans just could not bear to see women killed.

"In the Gulf War, they thought if a woman came back in a body bag, everyone would freak out," said Linda Grant DePauw, president of the Minerva Center in Maryland that studies women and war. "But women are embedded in the functioning of the entire military. You can't just pull people out on the basis of gender anymore. It's a different way of thinking about war."

More than 200,000 women serve in the active-duty forces, about 15 percent of the total.

Despite combat limits, women have found themselves in many firefights and danger.

More than 400 died in World War II, most of them nurses; in the 1989 invasion of Panama, women flying helicopters landed infantry under heavy fire and women in military police units conducted infantry-style missions to search neighborhoods for guerrillas.

The question of how Americans would react to large-scale deaths of women has not been tested since the ban was loosened. In the Gulf War, 13 U.S. servicewomen died of causes including Scud missile attack, mines and crashes. Two were taken as prisoners of war.

The Navy and Air Force have started allowing women to fly fighters and bombers.

Except for submarines, Navy women can be assigned to all combat vessels, including aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates. They can fly all aircraft.

"It's a level playing field because now any service officer can do the same job, can compete," Storum said. "Whoever is best will rise to the top, be promoted and do well."

The Air Force also has opened doors.

"There are not many fields that women can't be in," says Augustine, a senior airman who guards military bases and planes.

"It's kind of exciting and a little scary being my first time," said Air Force Capt. Kimberly Purdon, 26, a weapons system officer based at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.

By "first time," she meant war. She was preparing for deployment. Purdon has trained aboard the supersonic B-1 bomber for two years.

"A lot of us are in the same boat," she said. "There is no distinction between men and women. We feel the same way about wanting to go over there and serve."

Air Force women, however, cannot be paratroopers. Nor can they be air combat controllers, whose job is to take over runways so military planes can land.

Other services, too, have lines women cannot cross.

For example, women in the Army cannot be assigned to combat units at the battalion level and below. A battalion goes near the front lines.

They can serve in infantry, armor, artillery and other units at the brigade level and higher; these units are behind combat battalions on the battlefield.

Female soldiers are likely to see their share of combat as truck drivers, MPs, signal specialists and aviators if the United States launches a ground war.

"They're not on front lines, not in trenches, not in foxholes, but they do supportive missions," said Army spokeswoman Dottie Vick at Fort Benning in Georgia.

In the Marines, women are not allowed in the infantry, artillery, tanks, amphibious assault vehicles and certain intelligence jobs, said Capt. Joe Kloppel. But many women have become Marine helicopter and jet pilots, a departure from the Gulf War, when there were none.

Researchers say women have made up about 6 percent of the force in the Afghan war serving on warships, flying refueling planes and deploying with infantry as military police.

In leaving her base for an undisclosed overseas assignment, Augustine knew she was walking into risk. She said of her weapon: "I carry it to work every day, I'm prepared, trained and capable of using it."

Does she want to? "Whenever you get to go home fully intact with your ammunition," she said, "it's a good day."